February 27, 201115 yr Stock picture of case: The shipping box - not bad from Germany. Well packed Inner box - good condition - 2 extra fan mounts on top Easy to take apart - floppy holder removed (not shown) Drive cage barely fits - height very close Overhang from top of case has to go Dremmel and file That's better Dremmeled plastic, left this to file Filed Result Looks pretty good - but problem is it cracked slightly. I pulled the plastic bezel off for now. The height of the cage is a problem. Even with just 1 thin piece of plastic at the top of the bezel, it is still too tall. The round barrels that lock the bezel to the case aren't aligned. I tried dremmeling off the tops of the barrels, that's how I got to the result above. But I didn't want to take off any more or risk losing grip. Any ideas? I an considering either - 1 - removing the barrels completely and trying to find another way to secure the bezel to the case (nothing comes to mind, but may be able to come up with something, or something more drastic like cutting off the top of the bezel and replacing with a separate piece of plastic on top of the drive cage. Suggestions welcome ...
February 27, 201115 yr Looking at the tower from the front do the right side cages lineup with screw holes or did you have to make your own? My cages installed fine, the left side of them I used 4 screws then went to screw in the right side and none of the holes lines up. They were installed tight enough and there wasn't any movement at all, but wondered if that is normal. By the way, use VELCRO!
February 27, 201115 yr Author Looking at the tower from the front do the right side cages lineup with screw holes or did you have to make your own? My cages installed fine, the left side of them I used 4 screws then went to screw in the right side and none of the holes lines up. They were installed tight enough and there wasn't any movement at all, but wondered if that is normal. By the way, use VELCRO! I didn't have the misalignment you mention. Was able to screw in on both sides. If the screws didn't align, did you also have problems with the the holes on the front bezel not aligning with the case. If not, very strange. I did notice that because of the thin metal construction is was pretty easy to knock the case out of true when removing the top. It is possible that if you loosen the screws holding the top on you'd find enough give to attach on both sides. Thanks for the velcro idea. Just concerned it would leave a gap where bezel attaches to case. Any other ideas?
March 5, 201115 yr Looking at the tower from the front do the right side cages lineup with screw holes or did you have to make your own? My cages installed fine, the left side of them I used 4 screws then went to screw in the right side and none of the holes lines up. They were installed tight enough and there wasn't any movement at all, but wondered if that is normal. By the way, use VELCRO! I didn't have the misalignment you mention. Was able to screw in on both sides. If the screws didn't align, did you also have problems with the the holes on the front bezel not aligning with the case. If not, very strange. I did notice that because of the thin metal construction is was pretty easy to knock the case out of true when removing the top. It is possible that if you loosen the screws holding the top on you'd find enough give to attach on both sides. Thanks for the velcro idea. Just concerned it would leave a gap where bezel attaches to case. Any other ideas? 3m makes double sided tape thin as paper almost, but is very strong. I use it all over the place on things. Just Google 3m tape or something like that, you'll come up with a bunch of stuff.
March 8, 201115 yr Where are you guys getting these Sharkoons? I can't find them anywhere stateside. That's the issue. It's a Euro and SE Asia model.
March 9, 201115 yr Author Where are you guys getting these Sharkoons? I can't find them anywhere stateside. Look HERE.
March 9, 201115 yr Thanks bjp. What do you think of the quality? Are the buttons solid, or wimpy? Is the finish even?
March 9, 201115 yr I got the smaller Version of this Case (Rebel 9) on my attic, waiting that Asus will Release a suitable E350 Board for the unRaid Server i want to build. The Buttons are made of Plastic, but they are solid. The only "negative" thing is the extreme bright blue Power LED.
March 9, 201115 yr Author Thanks bjp. What do you think of the quality? Are the buttons solid, or wimpy? Is the finish even? Generally quality is good. Metal a little thin. But the case disassembles nicely to get to everything you need to get to. Overall I'd give it a B+ in build quality. I wish there were room behind the motherboard mounting plate to run / hide cables, and cutouts in the mounting plate for that purpose. But my biggest issue was in trying to use the top slot (designed for a floppy) with my 5 in 3. I partially solved my problem, but still working on the cosmetics. Not something I can wholeheartedly recommend to others, but if I can solve my final issue I may retract that statement. I like that it holds 26 drives! Not a problem with this case, per se, but I don't love that the PSU is at the bottom of the case. The giant 12 inch fan is facing upwards. If ever you are working on the server and a screw drops while installing or uninstalling a controller card, it could eaily fall right into the PSU. I could easily see fireworks if this happened inadvertently! And even if you did notice, turning the entire sever upside down to get it out would be a PITA. Unmounting the PSU is another option, but that can be difficult if wire management is in place. This happened to me once and I was luckily able to see it and fish it out with a magnetic screwdriver. Now, whenever I work on the server, I cover the PSU fan with a towel to keep anything from falling in! Overall I like the PSU at the top of the case.
March 9, 201115 yr I wish there were room behind the motherboard mounting plate to run / hide cables, and cutouts in the mounting plate for that purpose. Oh come on, you're an expert with that dremel now, just make your own cable management. Overall I like the PSU at the top of the case. This is so ironic, because I prefer the PSU at the bottom to prevent the case from being top heavy. While the 12 bay version you're using is bottom mount, the 9 bay version I'm looking at is top mount!
March 10, 201115 yr Author Oh come on, you're an expert with that dremel now, just make your own cable management. I could dremel cutouts with no problem - the issue is there is no physical space behind the mounting plate for anything but a skinny wire or two. No where near enough for the 8 pin motherboard power connector that I'd love to run back there. But the case is large and there are ways to run the cables in a semi-organized way. Still working on it.
March 10, 201115 yr The Rebel 9 Aluminum (which I bought for my wife, she's got an AMD Phenom 6x 1100T with water cooling, slightly overclocked by 17% under her desk now...) has the PSU on the bottom to, but facing the fan downwards, with a mesh on the floor of the case. Seems like a pretty nice idea for me. The overall quality of the Rebel 12 is B+, I confirm that. The Rebel 9 Aluminum (which is not even made of aluminum, only the front plate looks like Aluminum) is B- for me. The little screws that hold the slot covers are way to short, so 4 of 9 covers were fallen off before I even touched the case. But having enough screws in the right dimension that was no problem. Very good: 4 places for 140mm fans. The Watercooling (CoolIT ECO Advanced Liquid Cooling) was mounted in 5 minutes and replaced the boxed AMD cooler - which is one of the loudest I've ever heard. Windows desktop is now at 33°C, running HandBrake on all 6 OC cores with 600% CPU usage raises the core temp to 50°C - no heartache at all. After all, those cages are quite cheap... BTW: nice dremel work. My Rebel 12 is still on 15 drives, with 3 pcs. of 3x5 Supermicro cages. I didn't have the time and/or need to change that. But the time will come...
March 10, 201115 yr I could dremel cutouts with no problem - the issue is there is no physical space behind the mounting plate for anything but a skinny wire or two. No where near enough for the 8 pin motherboard power connector that I'd love to run back there. But the case is large and there are ways to run the cables in a semi-organized way. Still working on it.
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